


Fire with Fire

by eerian_sadow



Series: Sparkeaters and Other Walking Dead [11]
Category: Transformers (Bay Movies), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Character Death, Community: spook_me, Gen, No happy ending here, Sparkeaters, sparkeater hunters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 00:42:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21262292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eerian_sadow/pseuds/eerian_sadow
Summary: On Cybertron, part of the rebuilding process involves finding rogue Sparkeaters and making as much peace with them as possible. Sometimes, that's none at all.





	Fire with Fire

**Author's Note:**

> written for the 2019 round of the Spook Me ficathon! 
> 
> my monster was vampires
> 
> my image prompts were https://images46.fotki.com/v677/photos/6/3814576/16026379/81ef454c4344f5ab8fc96251899624-vi.jpg
> 
> https://images51.fotki.com/v1563/photos/6/3814576/16026379/bbasapterusvamw1_jpg1485355264-vi.jpg

Ironhide’s cannons itched.

He hated the feeling, and he hated being out alone hunting for other sparkeaters. He wasn’t as good at “vampire hunting” (as Lennox had been fond of calling it before he got too old to join his friend) as Jazz was, and he didn’t have Bumblebee’s insistent company to watch his back. Optimus and Jolt had both offered to accompany him once or twice, but the Prime was too valuable an asset and Jolt just couldn’t keep up with him.

So, he hunted alone and his cannons itched at the thought of being watched by someone or something he couldn’t see.

He could though, faintly, smell the other sparkeater. Hidden under the scents of corroding metal and poisoned energon, he could pick up the scent of death and curdled vital fluids that marked all but the youngest of their kind. He and Jazz suffered it less than others, thanks to Ratchet’s care, but it was still noticeable.

Enough of a marker that when he came upon a femme crouched over a prone body in the street, she looked up at him and hissed a warning rather than greet him. Blood energon and other less easily recognizable fluids dripped from her face like she had chewed her way into the other mech’s spark chamber before feasting on his spark. 

It would have been unnerving, if he hadn’t seen other starving mechanisms both living and undead, do the exact same thing in desperation for any bit of fuel they could acquire. 

And she probably wouldn’t be stable enough to agree to an alliance, but he had sworn to Optimus that he would negotiate first and shoot second. He and Jazz were proof that sparkeaters could live in harmony with the living, after all. “Take it easy, I’m not here for your meal.”

She hissed again and flared her plating out aggressively. Ironhide resisted the urge to sigh. Ratchet was the diplomat and de-escelator, not him.

“I’m here on behalf of Optimus Prime. The Autobots wish to offer an alliance with you.” That line had only worked once in the five years they had been doing this, but that ancient sparkeater had claimed there were others who would accept if Jazz or Ironhide asked.

The femme hissed again and tried to flare her plating further but something broke with a grinding pop. She shrieked as her arm fell off and landed in her victim’s chest cavity.

The stench of rotting proto-metal filled the desolate street, drowning out the other smells of decay in this sector. Ironhide frowned and finally gave himself permission to activate one of his cannons. If the femme was already this decayed, it would be a mercy to her if he executed her.

Optimus would just have to understand.

The other sparkeater’s body flew apart into a grisly shower of decaying metal and rotted cables as he fired, and Ironhide knew he had made the right choice. No amount of feeding would have given her body the ability to repair that kind of damage, and she would have just continued to fall apart painfully.

The knowledge didn’t soothe the part of him that sounded just like Optimus, but he had gotten good at ignoring that.

He activated his comm suite with a sad sigh. “Base, this is Ironhide. I need a portable smelter and a few hands to help clean up.”

_”Something go sideways, Hide?”_ Jazz’s voice on the line was an unexpected relief. His fellow sparkeater would understand exactly what he had needed to do, without any judgment.

“Yeah, this one was too far gone.”

_”That sucks slag. Me an’ Bee’ll be there soon.”_

“Copy.” He didn’t like waiting here alone, but at least his cannons weren’t itching anymore.


End file.
